With the immense growth of the Internet and of mobile networks, the convergence of the two networks is considered inevitable. In a mobile Internet, the problem of efficiently carrying the Internet Protocol (IP) over mobile networks is critical, since the IP protocol has enjoyed the comfort of relatively higher bandwidth links and lower transmission errors. In a mobile network, such as a wide-area cellular network, lower link bandwidth necessitates that the IP header overheads are minimized in order to better utilize the link capacity to deliver useful payload to applications. The challenge for header compression in such links is to be robust against higher channel errors and also be sensitive to longer Round-Trip Times (RTTs). The [rohc] working group in the IETF has undertaken work to specify a robust header compression protocol for operation over lossy links with longer latencies.
Briefly, a robust header compression algorithm functions using a compressor and a decompressor. The compressor begins by sending packets with Full IP headers, until it gains sufficient confidence that the decompressor has received the required information, called Full Context. The point of such a determination is to allow subsequent header compression to operate with as small number of header bits as possible. This context initialization phase is important since it forms the basis for both the compressor and the decompressor to progress towards spectrally efficient state using a consistent reference state. However, it creates a bursty traffic pattern, consisting of some Full Header packets that require a large amount of bandwidth, followed by some compressed packets that require a significant smaller amount of bandwidth. Bandwidth allocation or Connection Admission Control (CAC) is thus complicated by the Header Compression scheme. Allocating the minimal amount of bandwidth or accepting the maximum number of connections while giving enough room for the header compression context initialization burst is a difficult task, yet of tremendous importance.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.